A Handful of Dust
by Jon Adcock
Part 1 appears in this issue.
conclusion
The river was sluggish and foul, with clumps of green slime floating on the surface and dead fish washing up along the banks. The exo had sunk far enough into the muck to be hidden. I dragged the synthetic into the lower level of a partially collapsed parking structure. Afterward, I returned to erase the drag marks using a tree branch.
The interior of the structure was hot and fetid, with a strong, pungent stench of cat spray. The northern section had collapsed, leaving a disordered mix of crushed vehicles and debris. Sunlight filtered through the rubble in a few spots, creating a checkered pattern of light and shadow all around us. In a nearby oasis of light, the stirred-up dust swirled like a shaken snow globe. I dragged the synthetic into the darkest section and did my best to conceal it under the rubble.
The surveillance drone continued to broadcast, and I watched as the soldier approached. There was a nearby bridge, and I hoped he would think we had crossed it. He paused at the edge of the riverbank, staring into the water. I cursed softly when he moved toward the parking structure.
I climbed on top of a nearby wreck, hoisted myself onto the next level, and worked my way around until I was above where the enemy would enter. The only thing I had left as an offensive weapon was the surveillance drone, but it wasn’t big enough to do any damage. Not unless I got the soldier’s helmet off. Once I did that, the drone could smash into his head at maximum speed.
I heard him approaching. His severely damaged exo gave away his position with the metallic grating sound of every step. When he was directly beneath me, I leaped off the half wall and landed on his back. With one hand, I gripped one of the weapon struts and reached for the base of his helmet with the other, trying to yank it off.
The soldier slammed backward into the wall. I held on tightly and kept pulling. As the helmet gave way, he grabbed one of my legs, pulling me off and throwing me against a nearby car. I slid to the ground and watched as his shoulder-mounted guns swiveled towards me.
“Just do it,” I said. They didn’t take prisoners. This death was going to be a forever one and, oddly, I felt a sense of relief at the thought. The soldier stared at me for several heartbeats before pulling out something bulky and aiming it. My back arched as the darts of the taser struck, and I went into convulsions.
The last sensation I felt before blacking out was someone gently caressing my face.
* * *
To my surprise, I woke up face down on the floor of a 2- by 3-meter cell. I had been wrong that the enemy never took prisoners. It must have been around daybreak; pale sunlight was creeping through the barred window. It timidly brushed across my outstretched arm.
Still feeling the effects of the taser, I crawled onto the bunk, pulled the thin blanket up, and fell into a restless sleep. My dreams were both fragmentary and vivid, with the blue-eyed girl playing a leading role in most of them.
“On your feet, Frankie.” The voice was gruff as I was hauled out of the bunk.
Three soldiers were in the cell with me. When the one holding me tried to force my arms behind my back, I spun around and head-butted him. There was a satisfying crack as his nose broke. As I lunged towards the other, he jabbed a metal rod into my chest. The pain was intense, and I collapsed onto the floor, convulsing. He jabbed me several more times, and warmth spread through my groin as I lost control of my bladder.
They forced my arms behind my back and handcuffed my wrists, then pulled me to my feet. After placing a canvas bag over my head, they half-dragged, half-carried me out of the cell and down the corridors. My pants smelled and were clammy.
We marched out of the building. By that point, I could walk on my own, but two of the soldiers flanked me, each holding one of my arms and propelling me forward. The heat was oppressive, and beads of sweat trickled down my neck. Nearby, a flight line produced the roar of transports taking off and landing. They forced me into another building, where the A/C greeted me with a frigid blast. There was an elevator and then more corridors. Eventually, we paused. I heard a door open.
“I’m releasing the cuffs. The stunner has ten settings. Try something, and you’ll find out what the other nine feel like,” a voice growled.
I felt one cuff release, and they guided me into the room with a firm grip on my arms. After they pushed me into a chair, someone yanked my cuffed arm forward. I heard a rattling sound as they secured my cuff to a bar on the table.
Suddenly, they yanked the canvas bag off my head. The burst of light was painfully bright. Across from me sat a stocky, middle-aged man with light brown skin, dark brown eyes and a closely trimmed beard speckled with gray. I had to restrain myself from lunging across the table at him.
“Get that looked at,” he said to the soldier whose nose I had broken. The front of the soldier’s uniform was soaked in blood. I took perverse pleasure in watching it continue to drip from his nose. After the wounded soldier left, the other two positioned themselves slightly behind me and to either side. The older man turned his attention to me. His gaze was intense, as if he searched for something.
“Thirsty?” he finally asked me. When I nodded, he filled a glass from the pitcher nearby and slowly pushed it toward me.
“You know this is a waste of time, don’t you?” I said after draining half the glass. “I don’t know anything. They just send me places, and I try to kill as many of you as I can when I get there. Beyond that, I’m 1698D, Revenant Class.” More perverse pleasure when the soldiers on either side of me stiffened at my comments.
“Yeah, Frankies are never a fount of information. I have other reasons for this.”
“What’s this ‘Frankie’ crap?”
“Just a nickname. It’s from a very old book. In it, Dr. Frankenstein created a monster by reviving a dead body. It’s a fitting name for most of the resurrected troops.” He poured a glass of water for himself and took a long sip. When he was done, he stared into my eyes and asked, “Do you know who I am?”
“The enemy.”
“Why?”
“Why, what?”
“Why am I your enemy? Come on, it’s a simple question. If I were to release that restraint, you’d try to kill me. Why? You should have a reason to kill a man.”
I asked, “How many others did you capture?”
“Just the one we set the trap for,” he said as he bent down to retrieve a bag. He shook it on the table, and the synthetic’s head rolled out. “We currently have an interrogation program connected to its CPU. Unlike you, it has useful information. None of the other Frankies were salvageable.”
After staring at the synthetic’s severed head for a few moments, I asked, “Know why I’d kill you? Because you deserve it. I’ve seen the burn pits filled with the captive soldiers you’ve executed.”
“Sometimes, things aren’t what they seem, Jason...Yeah, I know your name. That struck a chord, didn’t it? You never could hide your feelings.” He reached into his pocket, took out a small disc, and slammed it onto the table. A foot-tall holographic image appeared. It was an image of me, less tattered and torn, but definitely me. “Meet Jason Kincaid. Born on October 12, 2152, in the Western Freehold. One of my oldest friends.”
“What a load of garbage!”
“I’m going to tell you a story. Afterward, you can decide if it’s garbage or not. There was a war. I don’t think anyone remembers who started it, but tens of millions died when the bombs fell, and even more from starvation and disease in the years after.
“Pushed to the brink, we survived, thanks in part to these,” he said, picking up the synthetic’s head and tossing it from one hand to the other before setting it down in front of me. “We created them, and they were a godsend... until they weren’t. The synthetics rebelled five years ago, and we’ve been fighting for survival ever since.”
“Fairy tales usually start with once upon a time,” I said when he paused.
“You always were a smart-ass,” he said. “No one really knows why they turned against us. Maybe they figured their chances of survival were better on their own than with a bunch of apes who couldn’t play well with others. Whatever the reason, it’s been a long and bloody five years. Frankies started appearing two years ago. In a twisted way, it made sense. Dead people were a renewable resource to exploit, so they exploited them. We think you were captured alive, and that’s why there’s more of you left than usual. They’re your enemy, Jason, not us.”
“You’re my only enemy. You killed me again and again, and each time, they brought me back. So, I’m sticking with the ones who want me alive.”
“You’re being used, and they will keep using you until there’s nothing left,” he said, then slammed his fist on the table. “Come on, Jason, you’re smarter than this. Didn’t any of it feel wrong? Yeah, we rarely repatriate Frankies. Most of them are so far gone they’re barely human anymore. It’s also tough to get past the conditioning that turns them homicidal at the sight of us. It’s usually an act of mercy to put them out of their misery.”
“End me then.”
“Take him back to his cell and give him a change of clothes,” he said to the guards. He gave me a long, complicated look. “We’ll continue this tomorrow.”
“On your feet, hands behind your back,” one guard said after unlocking me from the metal bar.
“Give me a moment. I’m still feeling the effects of that stunner,” I said.
I slowly rose to my feet, swaying slightly as I did. Just as I was almost upright, I pitched forward, and the guards reached out to catch me. Quickly, I ducked down, rotated, and slammed their heads together. As they collapsed, I grabbed one of their stunners.
My interrogator surged out of his chair, scrambling for his sidearm. The stunner made a satisfying crackle when I jabbed it into his chest. After he fell across the table, I dialed it up a few levels and jabbed him again on principle. I took his gun.
The corridor was empty, and I cautiously made my way down it. I had no illusions about my situation; I knew I wasn’t leaving the base alive. However, I was determined to create as much havoc as possible before they snuffed me. A door slammed open behind me, and I spun around. A woman stepped out.
“They’re coming, Jason. You need to give me the gun.” She hurried down the corridor with her hand out.
It was the woman from my memories. She looked leaner and harder now. Her long blonde hair was sheared down to an inch-long stubble, and a jagged scar ran across her right cheek. But her eyes — their brilliant blue — remained unchanged. An elevator door rang and opened, followed by the pounding of metallic boots.
“You need to give me the gun, Jason,” she said again. “They’ll kill you if you don’t. I won’t lose you again.”
She stood in front of me, her hand still outstretched. Two exo-armored soldiers appeared behind her as they rounded the corner. For a few heartbeats, I felt like I was two different people: the vengeful soldier seeking payback and the man from my memories who had been hopelessly in love with her. As I reached out to shove her aside and confront the two soldiers, I looked into her eyes once again and realized I was done with dying.
I handed her the gun. The two soldiers pushed past her, and I quickly became reacquainted with their stun batons.
* * *
Later that evening, she came to see me. The sunlight filling the cell that morning had all drained away, leaving only a single bulb to illuminate the space. When she entered, I was sitting on the edge of my bunk, locked in a stare-down with the lone guard sitting outside my cell.
“Give us a moment, Marcus,” she said to the guard. He hesitated, then nodded. She backed into his metal folding chair. “I just wanted to tell you the two guards you injured are OK. Evan will be fine, too.” When I frowned, she asked, “How are you doing, Jason?”
“Look, I’m embarrassed to say this, but I don’t know your name.”
“Eva.”
“Eva,” I said her name softly, trying it out. “I called you Eve, didn’t I?” When she nodded, surprised, I continued, “You were the soldier I fought with by the river, weren’t you?” Another nod. “How am I doing? I was just told my life is a lie, and I don’t know what to believe. Part of me thinks it’s all some sort of trick.”
“We have therapists who can help you through the repatriation. I can have one of them here in the morning to talk with you.”
“They’re probably wasting their time. When I see one of you, all I feel is a simmering rage. Hell, I spent the afternoon thinking up different ways to kill that guard. If... what’s his name?... Ivan? If Ivan was telling the truth, you probably should have shot me.”
“I couldn’t do that. I love you,” she said after an awkward silence.
“The person you loved is gone, Eve. I don’t know who I am, but I’m not that man anymore,” I whispered.
“Just answer this question: Do you love me?”
“I love you. You’re the only thing that feels real to me right now, but I don’t think it’s enough.”
“It’s not. But it’s a start.” She knelt and reached out to me. “Let me help you, Jason.”
I stared into her sky-blue eyes. Lost on a storm-wracked sea, without a map or compass to guide me, I knew she might be the beacon that would lead me back to shore. I took her hand, caught between the need to hug her or kill her.
Copyright © 2026 by Jon Adcock
